The council has been cleared of criminal intent following two probes into a claim that children’s remains were illegally exhumed on a regular basis for years.

But burial procedures at council graveyards have been tightened after an inquiry confirmed remains and urns were moved during lair re-openings.

A new computerised interment recording system is being brought in to replace “cumbersome and open to error” paperwork and a Burial Services Operations Handbook has been produced to ensure standard practice right across the region.

Chief executive Gavin Stevenson ordered an investigation following Standard revelations that regulations protecting the remains of dead children had been “ignored for years”.

Children’s coffins can be exhumed temporarily to make way for other family members being buried in the same plot.

But that should only be done after a warrant for exhumation is obtained from a sheriff. According to grave diggers that rule was regularly overlooked. One described remains being kept in black bags at the side of graves and then re-buried.

Investigations were soon expanded and detectives were called in.

A report to the DGFirst management committee next week reveals police passed on a report to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service who decided there was no criminal case to answer and handed everything back to the council.

Dalbeattie minister the Rev Norman Hutcheson was called in to carry out an independent probe and he found human remains and urns containing ashes were moved during the re-opening of lairs.

But he concluded: “This poor practice was not done with any form of criminal intent or malice.”

He commended the council for its “open and transparent approach” handing over a “large amount” of documentary evidence and electronic files which showed some “ambiguities and conflicting information” on how staff were instructed to deal with human remains.

Poor records sometimes resulted in the remains of children being discovered unexpectedly, largely because children’s coffins were interred at a depth of three feet six inches to reduce the distress of parents seeing a small coffin lowered to the usual seven feet.

The report points out that in the past it could take four weeks to obtain a warrant of exhumation but a new, fast track system has been introduced which guarantees any petition for exhumation can be placed before a sheriff “in a matter of hours”.

The council has made a “significant financial investment” in the new eight point burial management system which will ensure regular staff briefings and meetings about legal obligations; more shrouds to protect human remains and enable shallow interments; and more regular meetings between the burial services and local undertakers.